


Life's a Balancing Act

by EchoResonance



Series: Acrobatics [2]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Attacks, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad and Happy, Self Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-05 05:57:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5363978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoResonance/pseuds/EchoResonance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurapika returns after four years without so much as a phone call to find that his friends have grown into incredible Hunters and fine people, but he can't imagine the sort of horrors that lie just behind their smiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Part of Kurapika feels foolish for the way his heart is pounding. Part of him recognizes that it’s been years, so he’s entitled to feel a little anxious, particularly since the time apart was entirely by his own fault, as unintentional as it might have been. However, _all_ of him is excited and lighter than he can remember being in a very, very long time.

They don’t know he’s here. He tracked down their whereabouts on the sly—something he’s become quite skilled at, due to his now-finished line of work—and promptly took the first flight out. He isn’t sure what kind of response he’s going to get when he shows up at their door, though. By all rights, they should be angry with him, but he’s never thought of them as predictable. Only a fool would. While there are a few things about them anybody can expect, their on-the-fly reactions are a complete mystery even to those closest to them. Kurapika wonders if he is still counted among that incredibly lucky number.

So it was that he came to be standing outside the door to a small house just outside of Yorknew City, a messenger bag slung across his shoulder and stray bits of hair falling into his eyes when the wind blew. Idly he reaches back, wondering what their responses will be when they see that he hasn’t bothered to cut his hair since the last time they’d all been together. It had just been too much of a hassle, and before Kurapika knew it his negligence had landed him with hair well past his shoulders. He’s taken to braiding it back, something not uncommon among long-haired Kurtas regardless of gender, and he became attached to it like this.

He hears a loud noise inside, followed by a fair amount of shouting and laughing, and his heart skips a beat. With one last breath to steel himself, he raises his hand, curled into a fist, and wraps smartly on the door. There’s a break in the noise inside, and then he hears an unfamiliar voice shout something he can’t quite distinguish, though he suspects it’s saying that it will get the door. He lowers his hand to the strap of his shoulder bag, fingers curling tightly around it as he waits.

Thankfully, the door opens inward, because it swings open far too enthusiastically, and had it instead swung outward, it might very well have knocked Kurapika flat on his back. As it is, no such thing happens, and the Kurta finds himself standing at eye-level with a strong, tanned jaw. A jaw that promptly drops when the person sees him. He casts his gaze upward slightly, and some part of him knows he’s holding his breath but can’t make him remember how to draw another one in, because he is looking _up_ into a pair of bright, amber eyes. He remembers those eyes very well, though when last he’d seen them he’d actually been looking down.

“Kurapika!”

“Hello, Gon,” he says softly, smiling at his old friend.                                                         

The boy grins, and though there’s something behind that smile now, something like a shadow that Kurapika doesn’t remember ever being there before, it’s still bright and wide and utterly him. Then strong arms are being flung around him, and Gon is crushing him to a chest far too broad to belong to the twelve-year-old he met during the Hunter Exam. Kurapika lets a laugh escape him and wraps his arms around Gon in return.

“It’s been too long,” he sighs when Gon releases him.

“It feels like it’s been ages,” Gon agrees.

“You’ve grown,” Kurapika notes.

Gon scratches the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Yeah,” he chuckles. “I guess so. Not a shrimp so much anymore, huh?”

Kurapika smiles. It isn’t just physically that Gon has grown. As is to be expected, his aura is much larger now, but also far more refined. More stable. Kurapika wonders if he’s able to conceal it using Zetsu, as powerful as it is, but he reasons that there’s no reason he shouldn’t be able to. Gon has always been a fast learner, and he doesn’t expect it to be any different in Nen.

But something about it is off all the same. Something about _Gon_ is off. The shadow behind his smile and hovering in his eyes. The careful control Kurapika can sense in his aura. Is it because of him? Is Gon upset with him, and trying to hide it?

“Oi, Gon, who is it?” calls a voice from farther in the house.

Kurapika’s heart jumps again; it’s a voice unfamiliar and at the same time not at all. Like Gon’s, it has become lower, fuller. But it’s still soft, still bears an almost musical lilt that is very difficult to detect unless you knows that it’s there.

Gon doesn’t have time to answer before Killua is standing at his shoulder, giving his friend a shrewd look that does nothing to hide the fondness in his bright blue eyes. He’s the same height as Gon, maybe a couple inches taller—it’s hard to tell with the way he’s slouching. Then he looks away from Gon to the man standing on the doorstep, and his raised eyebrow falls as he blinks in shock. A wide grin splits his face, and Kurapika feels a pang in his chest. His smile has changed, too.

“Kurapika!” he greets, pushing Gon out of the way to pull Kurapika into a one-armed hug. “It’s been forever. What’s up with your hair?”

Kurapika smiles and reaches back again, pulling the braid over his shoulder.

“I, uh, couldn’t be bothered to cut it recently,” he answers honestly. “Is it strange?”

Killua shrugs, still smiling.

“Only because I’ve only ever seen you with short hair,” he responds. “Well, I guess it was getting kinda long last time we saw you. It looks good, though.”

The smile on Kurapika’s face, for the first time in years, is genuine and wide enough to hurt his cheeks. He wonders if it’s because he’s so unused to the expression.

“Well, come on,” Gon says, reappearing behind Killua and elbowing his best friend in the ribs. “Why are we catching up on the doorstep?”

“Because you didn’t just invite him inside in the first place,” Killua retorts, catching Gon in a head lock. “C’mon in, Kurapika. I’m sure Leorio’s probably gonna piss himself when he sees you.”

Kurapika feels the first true sliver of unease enter his stomach. Leorio…

“Thank you,” he says, crossing the threshold and shedding his slippers as Gon and Killua fall into one of the tussles that Kurapika hasn’t realized he missed so much. He takes it upon himself to close the front door behind him, since the other two are clearly otherwise occupied, and stands patiently in the entry hall, waiting to be directed so he doesn’t walk somewhere he shouldn’t.

“Living room,” Killua pants, momentarily holding Gon at bay.

The raven-haired young man twists in the albino’s grip, pulling him into a full nelson.

“Right in there,” Gon finishes, jerking his head in the direction of the short hallway.

Kurapika bows his head, and leaves them to their wrestling, thinking idly that clearly they haven’t changed all that much after all. He’s glad. A lot can happen in four years, much of it less than favorable. He’s happy that they don’t seem to have fallen victim to The Horrible.

Just before stepping out of the hall, Kurapika hesitates. Maybe he shouldn’t. He’s been a terrible friend to all of them, and while Killua and Gon don’t seem to mind, he knows rationally that it’s because they’ve always had each other. They haven’t been hurt by his absence nearly as much as they would have been hurt by each other’s. However, he knows that Leorio doesn’t have anyone else. Those boys—young men, now—view Leorio the same way they view him, and he knows Leorio feels the same. Kurapika is the only one that he’s had for himself. And Kurapika has erased himself from existence for four years.

Shaking his head, Kurapika reprimands himself. Of all the times for his resolve to tremble, this is not a good one. He’s made it this far, and is already in the house, a single step away. To second-guess himself just now is foolhardy, and though he knows deep down he has made foolish choices, he is loathe to consider himself a fool. So, squaring his shoulders and tightening the hand on his shoulder strap, Kurapika steps out into the living room.

The first thing he notices is that every flat surface is covered in books and papers. The coffee tables, the shelves, even the arms of the couch are almost invisible for all of the materials littering the room. Past that, the room is well-lit by large, uncovered windows situated in the far wall. Kurapika’s eyes flick around the rest of the room, and an ache takes hold of his heart.

Leorio is sitting in an armchair, bent over a book lying open on his lap and a highlighter held firmly in his large hand. There are shadows under his eyes, and his hair is an absolute mess that stands at odds with the crisp slacks and button-down shirt he wears. His glasses sit askew on his nose, and he has a dark five o’clock shadow across his jaw.

How he’s so focused when the other two are making such a racket is beyond Kurapika, but he isn’t sure he wants to disturb him. Like this, he can say he saw Leorio and it was okay. Like this, he can pretend that Leorio won’t be upset. Like this, he can pretend that he hasn’t been away for months that so quickly became years, and that when Leorio looks up he will throw some half-constructed witty remark his way that he will immediately shoot down. Like this, he can pretend that Leorio won’t hate him for leaving.

“Damn kids…”

Kurapika blinks, back going stiff as a board. His heart squeezes sickeningly as he realizes that he’s forgotten the sound of Leorio’s voice altogether. How deep and slow it is, how soft it can be when in one of his rare moods when he isn’t shouting like a maniac and inadvertently convincing everybody in the vicinity that he’s in need of an anger management course or seven. But it’s gravely, not from a natural roughness but as if from a cold, like he’s recently been sick and is just getting over it. Or he’s functioning on very little sleep.

“What part of ‘I gotta study’ don’t you guys ge—” Leorio grumbles as he looks up from his book.

His abrupt fall to silence is timed perfectly with the moment his dark eyes find not Gon or Killua but a lean blonde figure standing in his room at the end of the hall. Kurapika’s heart swoops painfully, and he can’t tell if it picks up in double time or stops altogether. All he knows is that it hurts and makes his chest feel horribly tight. His mouth is too dry for him to speak, and he doesn’t think the obstruction in his throat will allow him to anyway.

There’s disbelief in Leorio’s eyes. Disbelief, and shock, and anger, and a deep, deep hurt. His highlighter falls to the floor with a noise neither of them register, and the book in his lap is dumped onto the floor when he rises unsteadily to his feet. Kurapika’s fingers tremble, and he tightens them on the strap of his bag to hide it.

He counts each step Leorio takes, and he almost wishes the man’s legs were shorter so he could have taken a few more, just made the wait a little longer. However, whether because of Kurapika’s anxious state or because of Leorio’s ridiculous height, the man seems to cross the room in a single stride, and then he’s standing right in front of Kurapika, lips parted and eyes wide and a little damp. He reaches up with one hand, one large, hot hand, and touches the side of Kurapika’s face, as if assuring himself that he is in fact standing there in front of him. The touch is soft and scared.

The next touch is neither.

Something hard and solid collides painfully with the other side of his face, snapping his head to the side and causing him to stumble. His bag slides off his shoulder to the floor, and he registers that the thing that just slammed into his jaw was a curled fist, but even as he feels himself sailing through the air, a hand catches him around the elbow and jerks him forward, not aiming to keep him upright but directing his fall. And he’s being pressed against a hard chest, his nose tucked into the hollow of a throat, and arms are wrapped around his waist, wrapped so tightly that he’ll expect bruises in the morning. And Leorio is hugging him, hugging him with the kind of strength it’s easy to forget he possesses, with the kind of fierceness that suggests he never planned on letting go. And Kurapika is okay with that. And he’s leaning up, rising onto the tips of his toes to wrap his arms around Leorio’s neck, and his feet then leave the floor all together as the other man picks him up. And they’re both trembling, and they’re both crying, and neither of them ever want this moment to end.

And then the moment ends, and Kurapika’s feet meet the floor again, and his arms fall heavily back to his sides. And Leorio pulls away, taking his warmth with him, and pushes his hands into his pockets. And Kurapika knows from the look on his face that it isn’t going to be as simple as hugging and forgiving and forgetting. But he expected that.

“Why?”

Kurapika presses his lips together to hide their trembling. He knows that one word holds a great many questions. Why is he here? Why hasn’t he _been_ here? Why hasn’t he answered a single call, sent a single text, come to see any of them even once? Why had he done it all by himself when he knew they would help? Why did he refuse their help when they wanted so badly to give it? Why did he reject them? Why did he ignore them? Why did he leave them?

He has no answer, not to a single one of those questions. He knows now that he chose the worst way to achieve his goal, that he’d forsaken the wonderful people in his life, those still living, for people long since dead and cold. He knows now that he never needed to push them away in order to meet his goal, and that if he hadn’t, he would have been able to gather his people’s eyes so much sooner. He knows, now, that in rejecting his friends he may very well have cut an irreparable rift between them, and that there is no excuse for doing so.

Swallowing thickly, Kurapika opens his mouth, knowing there is only one thing he can say, and it won’t make anything better, but he needs to say it regardless. He has to know. Leorio has to know that _he_ knows what a fool he’s been.

So he does something that he has never, ever done for Leorio before.

He bows.


	2. Chapter 2

“I’m sorry,” he says softly. “I was stupid, and arrogant, and I was so obsessed with avenging the people I had lost that I forgot to cherish the people I still had. There’s nothing I can say that can right the wrong I’ve done to all of you, and if you can’t forgive me, I’ll understand. But I want you to know that I’m truly sorry. For everything.”

For a moment, neither of them speak. Kurapika doesn’t move from his position, bent at the waist with his braid hanging over his shoulder beside his chin.

“Do you regret it?”

He closes his stinging eyes, and a small, sad smile plays around his lips.

“I regret every phone call I ignored and every text I deleted,” he answers truthfully. “I regret every opportunity I had to see any of you that I did not take. But do I regret recovering my clan’s eyes? Absolutely not.”

“You found them all?”

“I did. I took them home, where they belong.”

“Good…That’s good.”

Kurapika doesn’t respond. His hands are shaking at his sides. Above him, he hears Leorio sigh, and a heavy hand finds his shoulder, its heat sneaking through the thick material of his tabard and the shirt he wears beneath.

“Kurapika, for God’s sake, will you please stand up?” he says awkwardly. “You shouldn’t be bowing to me, it’s making me feel really uncomfortable.”

Amusement at his words has Kurapika’s lips twitching as he straightens up, looking up cautiously at his friend’s face, which is gentle despite the severe look he’s trying to maintain.

“Leorio?” he says hesitantly when the other man says nothing.

The man closes his eyes and blows a long, slow breath out through his nose.

“You…” Leorio breathes, voice scarcely a whisper. “You have no idea…No idea how worried I’ve been. All those phone calls, those emails, and I never heard anything back from you. You could’ve been dead for all I knew. And those two…”

Kurapika blinks and glances over his shoulder, though he’s rounded the corner and can no longer see Killua and Gon down the hall.

“God, Kurapika, I—we all needed you here,” Leorio says. “Do you have any idea what I would’ve done just to see you? What they’ve gone through without you?”

The pain in Leorio’s voice is like a dagger to Kurapika’s heart. Knowing that he’s hurt them is terrible enough, but seeing it, hearing it, having it confirmed by them is far more agonizing. He wants to reach out, to take Leorio’s hand or touch his face, but knows not if he should allow himself that bit of comfort, or if it will be received charitably. Anything he does now is years too late.

“We—Gon and Killua and I—we were gonna go out to eat a little later,” Leorio says after a moment, opening his eyes again and looking down at Kurapika. “You—you can come. If you want.”

Kurapika stiffens, stunned, but pleasantly so.

“Don’t misunderstand,” Leorio says quickly, voice hard. “I’m still pissed as all hell at you. But right now I’m just glad you’re here. Right now, I’m just happy you’re okay.”

Kurapika stares at Leorio for a long moment, then bows his head, the tears building in his eyes threatening to brim over even though he’s smiling.

“I would love nothing more,” he answers quietly.

 A loud _thump_ sounds from the entryway, and Leorio sighs.

“Let’s go break them up before they break the house,” he says, and he smiles almost shyly when Kurapika looks up at him.

Kurapika leads the way back down the hall, lips curved upward. He wonders who’s pinned whom this time around, since those two have always been pretty evenly matched, giving tit for tat, as it were. As he emerges back into the entryway, he sees that Killua appears to have been the victor for this match, his hands pinning Gon’s wrists to the floor and his legs tangled around the other boy’s.

He comes to a very abrupt halt, however, causing Leorio to run straight into his back.

“Oof,” Leorio mumbles. “Kurapika, what—”

Kurapika claps a hand over his mouth, cheeks blazing at the scene he’s walked in on.

Killua is leaning down, lips brushing over Gon’s, movements unhurried and gentle, and Gon is leaning up, mouth moving in much the same way. Neither of them seem to have heard Kurapika or Leorio, as they show no sign in breaking apart. They should just…quietly excuse themselves…

“Mmph!” Leorio grunts against his hand, reaching up to pull it away from his mouth. “Oi, you two! What’ve I said about sucking face wherever you feel like?”

The two on the floor break apart, both looking around at Leorio, and Kurapika stares first at them, and then the man at his shoulder. Neither boy seems to be bothered by the fact that they’ve just been found kissing none too innocently on the floor, though there is a slight pink dusting Killua’s pale cheeks.

“Uh…not to?” Gon offers.

Leorio groans and pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

“At least not on the floor of my entryway, alright?” he says, exasperated.

“Yeah, yeah,” Killua says, leaning back to sit on Gon’s thighs.

“Is this—” Kurapika stumbles before he can stop himself. “Is this a common occurrence?”

Gon blinks and pushes himself up into a sitting position—Kurapika doesn’t miss that this brings his and Killua’s chests flush—giving him a sheepish grin.

“Uh—kinda,” he says. “Sorry, we forgot you were here, Kurapika.”

“Maybe _you_ did,” Killua snorts. “You’re the scatterbrain, not me.”

“Why you—”

Gon flips Killua over onto the floor, promptly sitting himself on the white-haired boy’s stomach and ignoring the spluttered complaints he’s met with. Kurapika stares some more.

“If you two are done being horny teenagers for the evening,” Leorio says, but he doesn’t seem legitimately annoyed. “Kurapika’s joining us for dinner. Make yourselves presentable; I won’t be seen in public with a couple of disheveled brats.”

“Like you’re one to talk, gramps,” Killua snorts, jumping to his feet with Gon close behind. “You’ve been wearing the same suit for three days. Have you even showered?”

Kurapika’s lips twitch as color rises in Leorio’s face. Laughing at his incoherent splutters, Killua slings an arm around Gon’s neck, and together they walk down a side hallway to what Kurapika can only assume is their room, disappearing through a door on the right and shutting it behind them.

“Brats,” Leorio grumbles, looking down at his suit. “Probably should change, though…”

He glances over at Kurapika, then to the hallway. With a slump of his shoulders, he gestures for Kurapika to follow him down, and he does without a word, noting as he does that framed photographs hang on the walls at random intervals. There’s one of Leorio holding his pre-med diploma, and one of him and the boys somewhere that Kurapika doesn’t recognize. There are several that have all four of them, and they hurt the most to look at, because seeing them and comparing the people in them to the present reminds Kurapika of how much time he’s missed. He knows nothing of the years they’ve spent apart, nothing at all of what Gon and Killua have done while they grew and grew and apparently refused to mature. Nothing at all of how Leorio is doing in med school, or what he’s been doing in his spare time assuming he has any.

Really, he knows nothing of anything.

Silently, he follows Leorio into the room at the end of the hallway on the left, noting a clutter even more complete than that in the living room. Papers are everywhere, books lying in places that Kurapika would never have expected capable of accommodating them.

“Sorry ‘bout the mess,” Leorio says gruffly. “Kinda comes outta nowhere, y’know? And by the time I realize it, it’s too much of a pain to clear up. I’ll just, uh, go change real quick.”

Kurapika looks around in time to see him slip into a walk-in closet, pulling the door shut behind him. A shaky sigh leaves him, and he sits heavily on a relatively clear spot on the edge of the unmade bed, eyes closed against the moisture they were still fighting to shed. He won’t cry, not here, not now.

It’s a happy moment, and he isn’t about to ruin it with tears.

* * *

“So when did this happen?” Kurapika asks, gesturing with one hand at Gon and Killua.

They sit at a round table at a small, family-owned restaurant not far from Leorio’s home, Killua and Gon sitting a little closer than is strictly necessary across from Kurapika and Leorio. When asked, Killua’s cheeks darken slightly and he looks away sullenly, clearly still easily flustered whenever Gon is concerned. Gon, as usual, has no such reservations.

“Ah…a year ago?” he says, forehead creasing as he thought.

Killua clicks his teeth.

“It’s been almost two years, idiot,” he says, no heat to his voice. “I’m amazed you even know how old you are, the way you keep track of time.”

“Oh shut up,” Gon retorts. “No reason for me to be counting days anymore, is there?”

Killua stiffens, looking back at the raven-haired boy with an uncharacteristically vulnerable expression. Gon’s lips twitch slightly, and Killua’s eyes flash.

“Guess not,” he mumbles.

Kurapika notices that Gon’s left arm shifts slightly, and though he can’t see his hand, he has a very strong suspicion that it’s taken hold of Killua’s under the table. His confusion doesn’t stem from the fact that those two are together. He’s long suspected their feelings for each other; the looks they shared have never really matched the way friends are generally expected to look at one another. No, his surprise comes from the simple fact that they have _gotten_ together. Years ago, they seemed on one hand perfectly content with their friendship, and on the other hand far too scared to risk trying to be anything else. What on earth could have spurred either of them to actually act on their feelings?

“So?” he prompts when nobody seems inclined to say more. “How did it happen?”

Gon shrugs, but it’s Killua who speaks this time.

“He spent two years being stupid, so I finally had to knock some sense into him,” he says snidely. Gon sticks his tongue out.

“I let you get that hit in,” he scoffs. “You’re the one that tackled me when I woke up. I couldn’t breathe because he was hugging me so hard.”

“I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t looked so pitiful,” Killua fires back, but he’s definitely blushing now. “All big puppy dog eyes and quivering lip; if you hadn’t grown almost a foot I would’ve thought you were still fourteen!”

“Says the one who was crying,” Gon says, bringing his other hand around to jab Killua in the side. “You missed me, just admit it.”

“In your dreams,” Killua says loftily, swatting the offending finger aside. “Two years was like the blink of an eye. Probably because I actually got some decent sleep without you snoring in my ear every night.”

“That’s not what Alluka said!” Gon responds. Killua’s cheeks darken still further.

“Don’t trust anything my little sister says,” he snaps. “She’s just trying to embarrass me. I swear, I think she likes you more than me.”

“Nah, no one would like me more than Killua,” Gon says dismissively. “Well, I guess if they had to spend a couple years alone with you…”

“Why, you little—” Killua starts, bristling like an angry cat.

“Wait, wait,” Kurapika says, waving a hand in confusion. “You’re talking like you split up!”

The boys freeze, noses inches away from each other, and look back at Kurapika. Slowly, they lower themselves back into their chairs, curiously subdued.

“We…ah…did,” Killua says carefully. “For a couple years…”

“What?” he says, shocked. The boys have been joined at the hip ever since they met; to think of them parting ways is nothing short of asinine. “Why?”

He regrets the question immediately. A tension falls over the table, heavy and oppressive as the air just before a storm, and he has a feeling that whatever he has missed is not something that is often spoken of even between the two of them. Leorio shifts uncomfortably at his side, and Gon and Killua move closer together unconsciously, Gon’s arm flexing as though he’s tightening his hold on Killua’s hand. The shadows in the boys’ eyes flicker darker.

“It’s…a long story,” Gon says quietly.

Kurapika recognizes the meaning of his words. _It’s a bad story_.

“We have nothing but long stories,” Kurapika points out gently.

Gon shakes his head, and neither he nor Killua offer anything more of their own volition. Kurapika is surprised. None of them are of delicate sensibility, and he thinks he is less so than the others, so for them to have something they consider too hard to share with him seems strange. Maybe it’s just very personal?

“You mentioned your sister, Killua,” Kurapika says in an attempt to change the subject. “I didn’t know you had a sister. Is she with the rest of your family?”

“No…She’s actually with Bisky,” Killua says. “One of our Nen trainers.”

“So she’s a Nen user as well?” Kurapika says, intrigued. “Does she know what type?”

Once again, he seems to have said the wrong thing. Killua’s shoulders stiffen, and he tilts his head down slightly so that his hair covered his eyes.

“She’s a Specialist,” the boy says, voice bland despite his obvious discomfort. Gon glances over at him, then looks at Kurapika and gives a miniscule shake of his head.

_Don’t ask._

Kurapika bows his head slightly in acknowledgement, and tries again.

Three strikes.

“What were you two doing while you were apart?”

Leorio reaches over under the table and takes a hold of his knee, squeezing far too hard to be anything but a warning, a reprimand. He jerks his head toward the bathroom, and Kurapika hastily excuses himself from the table and follows Leorio away, trying to pretend he hasn’t seen the shadows that fall over Killua and Gon’s faces, twisting their expressions to something scared and ugly. A hand closes around his wrist, towing him quickly between tables and through the bathroom doorway. The door swings shut behind them, and Leorio flips the lock on it without looking, already turning to face his companion.

“Leorio, what—”

“Now’s not the time, Kurapika,” Leorio interrupts, voice hard and almost cold. “Catching up is gonna have to wait til we’re not in public, alright?”

“But I just—”

“No ‘buts’ right now,” Leorio says sharply. He takes in the startled expression Kurapika wears and closes his eyes, heaving a sigh that probably could have blown a mountain over. When he opens them again, he’s marginally more collected. “Look…You…You missed a lot, Kurapika.”

“I gathered that,” he says wryly. His words are met with a quelling look.

“None of it was good. Those two…God, I can’t do justice to what they’ve gone through. I don’t even really understand a lot of what happened,” he says weakly. “It’s been years since then, and they’re still not really over it. Might never be. Not that I blame them…”

He falls silent for a long moment, but Kurapika doesn’t dare speak this time. His heart is aching again, a vague, confused hurt without a specific source. The idea that those two, still children, could have gone through something terrible enough to give them Post Traumatic Stress Disorder horrifies him. But then, he’d been young himself. Younger, actually.

“They’re probably willing to talk to you about it,” Leorio finally continues. “But…but not here. Wait til we’re home, okay?”

Kurapika swallows thickly and nods, stomach twisting fearfully at the look on Leorio’s face, lines of distress etched far too deep for someone as young as he is.

“Alright,” he says softly. “Are they okay?”

Leorio glances behind him at the door.

“Okay is relative,” he says. “The fact that they’re still alive is a miracle. That they’re walking and talking and laughing most days would be impossible if it was anyone else.”

“Leorio…” Kurapika prompts.

“I know you’re looking for a straight answer,” the taller man says. “But I don’t have one. I couldn’t tell you, and if you ask them they’d tell you they’re fine whether they are or not. I think they’re as okay as it’s possible to be.”

Kurapika bites his lip.

“Are they okay enough for us to go back?” he asks.

“Give it a couple more minutes,” is his answer. “Depending on the day, it takes them a while to bring each other back. Considering that they’re in public, they’re probably trying pretty hard.”

“Would they even notice us?”

Kurapika is very familiar with the anxiety attacks that can be brought on from severe trauma, and that there were times when the world around him would just fall away, and nothing happening around him would even register until it was over.

“Killua would notice,” Leorio says without hesitation. “But he wouldn’t recognize us.”

“I see…”

What had he left them to? What have they been going through that he hasn’t been there to help them with?

“Kurapika.”

“Mm?”

“I know what you’re thinking, and there’s no point.”

“What do you know about what I’m thinking?”

Leorio’s hands clamp down on his shoulders, prompting him to look up.

“Because I wasted a lot of time wondering if I could’ve helped them,” he says firmly. “I wasted way too much time thinking about what I could’ve done _if_ I had been there. Asking myself if I could have kept them from getting hurt.”

Kurapika lowers his gaze.

“There’s no point in it,” Leorio says, shaking him. “It’s already happened. Thinking about what you might’ve done isn’t going to accomplish anything. All you can do is be here for them _now_.”

Kurapika knows he’s right, but it doesn’t make it any easier. How can he just _not_ think about it, about the fact that while he was gone his friends have apparently been through hell and back? Idly he remembers his thoughts upon first seeing them again, when he’d been glad that they had kept themselves out of trouble, and wants to kick himself.

“Kurapika, can you do that?” Leorio says. “If you can’t, you need to leave now.”

“H-hey,” he says, startled by the coldness in his tone.

“I’m sorry, Kurapika,” he says, and despite his harsh tone, Kurapika hears the sincerity in those words. “But the last thing those boys need is someone else so wrapped up thinking about what they might’ve done that they forget what those two actually _did_. They need people that can be there for them when they’re not okay, not people that just smile when they _are_.”

“I’m not a child, Leorio,” Kurapika says, with only a hint of the fire that those words usually accompany. “You don’t have to speak to me like I don’t know what that’s like.”

It’s unfair, he knows, but the words leave him without conscious permission. He’s taking a very serious situation and making it about him, maybe in a subconscious attempt to elicit sympathy or simply to get Leorio to shut up. Whichever it is, he is not given it. Leorio doesn’t let up on him in the least.

“I’m not suggesting that you don’t understand,” he says, each word clipped. “But dealing with it yourself and helping someone else with it is very different. You can’t just apply your own experiences, Kurapika, because everybody’s reactions are different. There is no formula for it.”

Kurapika presses his lips together into a thin line.

“So can you be what they need, or not?”

“Of course I can,” Kurapika says, temper flaring. “If you think that I would be cowed so easily, I am clearly not the only one that’s nearly forgotten his friends.”

Leorio blinks. Then his lips curve, and Kurapika realizes with a stutter of his heart that he’s done exactly what the man expected of him. He’s risen to the challenge.

“There he is,” Leorio says softly. “I was starting to think my Kurta had lost all his fire.”

Kurapika is silent. Then his own lips curve into a tired smile, and he leans his forehead against the other’s warm, solid chest.

“You’re infuriating,” he murmurs.

“Consider the sentiment returned.”

For a long minute, they stand just like that, with Leorio’s hands still on Kurapika’s shoulders and Kurapika’s forehead pressed against Leorio’s sternum. It’s close enough to an embrace to bring some sense of comfort.

“They’re probably alright,” Leorio says eventually. “We should go back out. Before they think we’re getting up to anything besides talking.”

Kurapika’s neck burns at the thought. He steps back, taking a deep breath and smoothing his hands over his clothes. Leorio watches him in silence, and follows close behind when he unlocks the door and makes his way slowly back to the table.

Gon and Killua are sitting with their heads bent low together, their hands folded around each other’s and sitting on the table. Kurapika hesitates before moving closer, eyes following the movements of their lips even though he can’t tell what they’re saying. He doesn’t know what he’s waiting for, but he doesn’t want to approach until he’s given some sort of signal. Leorio sets a hand on his shoulder and squeezes.

“They’ll notice in a second,” he says quietly.

As they stand there, Gon leans in and noses at Killua’s cheek, tugging his hands closer to him on the table. Killua closes his eyes and smiles slightly, then turns to feather his lips across Gon’s. When they pull apart, Gon’s eyes shift in the direction of the bathroom and find Kurapika and Leorio. He gives a small smile and waves at them, giving the cue Kurapika’s been waiting for.

Dinner goes significantly more smoothly after that.


	3. Chapter 3

Kurapika spends the entire walk back to Leorio’s house trying to think of a way to ask them to tell him everything he’s missed without seeming callous and tactless. Gon and Killua walk several paces ahead of him and Leorio, arms flung around each other’s necks like they had been so often back when they were twelve. It’s like the incident earlier never happened.

“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Leorio says quietly, jarring Kurapika from his thoughts.

“What is?”

“That those two are anything but normal kids,” Leorio elaborates. “Looking at ‘em right now, you’d never think they’d done anything harder than taken a bad math class in school.”

“Yes…” Kurapika says uncertainly, looking up at the man at his side.

Leorio doesn’t look over at him, but his arm slides cautiously around Kurapika’s shoulders, tucking him against his side. Kurapika doesn’t say anything, surprised though he is, and instead leans his head against the other man’s shoulder. He’s missed this. The easy contact, the physical reassurances and casual touches that he’d left with them.

They say nothing more until they get back, Leorio withdrawing his arm so that he can unlock his front door and lead the rest of them into the living room. Gon goes immediately to the armchair, flinging himself bodily into it and sighing contentedly, hands folded over his full belly. Killua flops down on the floor at his feet and leans back against him, arms folded loosely over his chest and eyes closed. That leaves the couch for Kurapika and Leorio. They sit down next to each other, Kurapika crossing his legs and folding his hands on his lap.

For a moment, nobody speaks. Then:

“You heard about the NGL fiasco, didn’t you, Kurapika?” Leorio says.

“Of course,” he scoffs. “Some Hunter I would be had I not known how the Chairman had died.”

The corner of Leorio’s lips twitch slightly.

“What exactly do you know about what happened?” he prompts. Kurapika frowns.

“A species of insects called Chimera Ants were evolving rapidly due to eating humans,” he says. “They took on human characteristics, even developing Nen abilities, and were killing humans at a huge rate to feed to their queen while she prepared to give birth to the next king. So the Hunter Organization was sent to kill the queen before the king was born, and exterminate the majority of her soldiers.”

“And?”

“And they didn’t manage to stop the king from being born. The king killed the queen and began hunting humans en masse himself, and the Hunters had to regroup. Chairman Netero died killing the king, and the Hunters that went with him killed the king’s royal guard and the highest ranking soldiers left.”

Kurapika looks between the three of them, frowning in confusion.

“Why are you asking me about that?” he asks.

“I forgot they didn’t actually release the names…” Leorio says quietly.

“Names? You mean of the other Hunters?” Kurapika says. “It was Morel and Knov. Even if they didn’t publicly release them, everyone knew that.”

“It took more than—” Leorio starts, but Gon interrupts him.

“Morel and Knov had their apprentices too,” the boy says. “Knuckle, Palm, and Shoot.”

“Right…” Kurapika says, still not sure where this is going. “But what does this have to do with you two?”

Killua looks back at Gon, who looks down at him, and then shrugs his shoulders.

“Netero kind of had his own apprentices,” he offers vaguely. Kurapika’s frown deepens.

“The Chairman doesn’t take apprentices,” he refutes at once. “At least, he didn’t have any at the time.”

“Nah, not officially,” Killua acknowledges. “But me and Gon always were his favorites, after all.”

It takes Kurapika a moment to understand Killua’s words, and then it takes several moments after that to realize that the punchline he’s waiting for isn’t going to come.

“You two—” he chokes, leaping to his feet.

The boys flinch slightly at the sudden movement, and a lead weight drops in Killua’s stomach.

“You didn’t…” he says, voice a rasping whisper.

“We did,” Gon answers.

“Not the Royal Guard?”

“Yeah.”

“You two…You idiots…How are you not _dead_?”

Killua laughs, but there is no humor in it. As Kurapika watches them, Gon nudges the boy’s shoulder with his knee until he scoots over, allowing the raven-haired boy to slide onto the floor next to him. It doesn’t seem to be something he does intentionally, but a subconscious action, his body automatically seeking physical comfort. Killua shifts beside him.

“Still not a hundred percent sure,” the white-haired boy says. “But it wasn’t for lack of trying.”

Kurapika recognizes the darkness seeping into his voice, and the hairs on his arms stand erect.

“Do you…” he says quietly, suddenly realizing that he has no right to make them relive what must have been a nightmare. “You don’t have to talk about it.”

Gon shakes his head, and Killua rolls his eyes.

“We know that,” Gon says.

Something warm touches Kurapika’s elbow, and he looks around to see Leorio reaching out a hand. When their eyes meet, Leorio gestures for him to sit down again. He does, cheeks a little warm at his lack of self-control, and then looks back at his younger friends.

“Someone…someone I cared about a lot got hurt by one of the guard members,” Gon says quietly. “He was protecting me and Killua, and Pitou—the ant—it attacked him. We ran. I didn’t know it then, but it killed him. I was…I was really messed up. When we were all getting ready to attack, I just…”

“Lost it,” Killua finishes. “He wasn’t in his right mind.”

“Pitou had been using some kind of puppeteer ability with its Nen to control Kite,” Gon says. “He was—he was already dead, but she…put him back together and…and used him to train the soldier ants.”

Something sour rises in Kurapika’s throat at the thought. A corpse being forced to fight, being torn apart and stitched back together just to get torn apart again. It’s sick, and he can’t even imagine giving the corpse a familiar face, can’t stomach the idea of it being somebody he cares about.

“Shoot captured him and brought him back, but he was all messed up, and he still seemed like he was alive,” Gon continues. “I was so focused on making Pitou fix him that…I completely lost it. I…I threatened to kill a girl I didn’t even know because I was upset, because Pitou was healing her but not Kite…I hurt Killua…I…

“When I found out that Kite was dead, I sacrificed everything I had, all of my Nen, my body, everything, so that I could have the strength to beat Pitou. To kill it. I did, but I destroyed myself. I was okay with dying. I should’ve died. I failed everyone. I—I was so obsessed with myself I didn’t even realize Killua was hurting, too.”

Kurapika’s gaze shifts to Killua, and he knows from the slight tightening in Killua’s shoulders that his own distress is showing. Not anger, exactly, not at them, but a horrible, gut-wrenching frustration mixed with horror at the picture Gon is painting in his mind. This thoughts are chaotic enough in his mind, his mind under enough stress, that he’s certain red is beginning to bleed into his eyes.

“I used to have this problem when I fought,” Killua says, voice barely more steady than Gon’s. “I—if an opponent was stronger than me, I couldn’t fight. I could only run. Bisky said I fought under the premise of escaping, and she was more or less right. It was how I’d been trained. It never used to be a problem—saved my life plenty of times. But…”

The glance Killua throws Gon’s way tells Kurapika all he needs to know. Because of Gon, Killua could no longer simply run away. He’d be leaving his best friend behind.

“I—I was afraid…I couldn’t _make_ myself fight, and I didn’t know why,” Killua continues. “I just—I knew that someday I was gonna have to choose between staying with Gon and getting myself—maybe both of us—killed, or leaving him behind. Bisky made me admit it…she said that I couldn’t stay with Gon anymore, because someday I’d leave him to die. She was…I still hate it, but the old hag was right.

“Gon had to go thirty days without his Nen…I was planning on sticking around for that month to keep him safe, but after that, I was going to leave. Before it came down to me betraying him in a fight.”

Kurapika stares.

“But an ant found us before that time was up. He was stronger than me, by a lot. At least, his Nen was,” Killua says darkly. “I refused to run away. I couldn’t. But I couldn’t fight either. There was this pain in my head, and it was like I was paralyzed, but I couldn’t run away. I already decided I was gonna protect Gon for that month, and I wasn’t gonna go back on that. Even if it meant dying.”

Gon shifts next to him slightly.

“But that pain in my head was horrible—it was always there, whenever I tried to fight someone with stronger Nen, and when it happened I could hear my brother telling me to run. He’s the one that trained me the most, it made sense that I’d hear him, but I’d never questioned it before. It gave me an idea, though.”

The mention of Killua’s brother seems to bother Gon more than talk of dying; the boy clenches his jaw, and he lowers his head so Kurapika can’t see his expression.

“My brother’s weapons are needles,” Killua continues. “He—I thought maybe he might have planted one in my head. To control me. Make sure I didn’t fight an enemy I couldn’t beat. So I went out on a limb and…well, I ripped it out. Hurt like a bitch, but I killed the ant after that.”

Kurapika blinks, taken aback by the blunt finish.

“But when we went back to NGL—after I got my Nen back,” Gon goes on. “I—Like Killua said, I completely lost it, and I just—I forgot that he was hurting, too.”

“Idiot, you didn’t forget—you didn’t even know to begin with,” Killua snorts, momentarily himself.

Gon frowns, and Kurapika has a feeling that he knows exactly what Gon is thinking. That Gon, instinctive, observant Gon, not realizing there was something seriously wrong with his best friend might be even worse than forgetting in the heat of the moment. It seems that Killua notices that, because he rolls his eyes and bumps Gon with his shoulder.

“I never told you,” he tells him. “I’m good at keeping things a secret, y’know?”

Gon doesn’t look like this cheers him up very much, and his friend sighs and turns back to Kurapika.

“Long story short, he said some things that hurt a lot, went off on his own to kill Pitou while I was fighting Yuupi—another guard member—and totally fucked himself up because he just _had_ to do it alone. I got there just in time to watch the finale.”

Once again, Killua brings the story to an abrupt close, but this time Kurapika thinks he understands why. Talking about something like that is never easy, but going into detail, when the details are what hurt the most, is even worse. Glossing over the parts that were and probably still are the hardest for Killua is likely the only way he can talk about them at all. But that tells Kurapika which parts are the worst anyway.

When Gon continues, his voice is uncharacteristically small.

“I said he didn’t care…” he mumbles. “That Kite meant nothing to him. I—I left him behind…When he caught up, I’d already released all my latent Nen. I was basically already dead when I fought Pitou, and once I killed it…”

“He was in a coma,” Killua takes over again, voice scarcely more than a whisper. “Had to carry him out of the NGL myself, and everyone that was left rushed him to Yorknew’s hospital. His entire body was bandaged—you couldn’t see an inch of his skin—and his…his Nen was…It felt…sick, y’know? It was horrible, all dark and twisted, and it was just leaking out of him. His private block was full of it. You couldn’t walk inside without feeling like you were gonna throw up or pass out. Lots of people came by, trying to talk to him, trying to get any sort of response from him, but he was basically dead. Didn’t react to anybody. Not even me.”

A shard of ice pierces Kurapika’s chest, and try as he might to push the images down, his imagination gets the better of his will. Images of Gon on a hospital bed, a twisted parody of the mummy costumes worn by small children on Halloween, flash across his mind. Thoughts of poisoned Nen pressing down on him like heavy storm clouds, sliding over his skin like something cold and slimy. The idea of Killua standing at his bedside, barely holding himself together, and Gon not responsive in the least.

People came to see him. Probably people Gon met from all over the world, people that Leorio called, who maybe hadn’t even met the boy but had heard of him. What must Leorio and Killua have thought when Kurapika ignored that call as he had all the others?

“I—my sister—her Nen ability is, ah…” Killua says, brow creasing. “I don’t really know what you’d call it. It’s literally just about anything. She can do almost anything you want. There’s this other presence inside of her that I call Nanika; she’s the one that uses the power. Alluka is the one that fills the criteria.”

Kurapika frowns. That’s not something he’s ever heard of before.

“It’s weird. I don’t fully understand it either. Just how it works,” Killua says with a shrug. “But Nanika can grant any request you make of her once Alluka’s requirements are made. There are loopholes, but I’m the only one that knows them. Illumi’s guessed at them, but he doesn’t know everything.”

“The requirements?” Kurapika prompts.

“In order for Nanika to grant your request, you have to grant three of Alluka’s requests first,” he says. “You have to grant her requests no matter what. If you deny her four times, you die. She’s training to control that now. Sometimes the requests she makes are easy—patting her on the head, playing dead, lifting her up—but sometimes they’re really hard. She asked a maid for her organs, once. And her spine. Obviously the maid refused, but she kept asking, and the maid died anyway.

“Nanika can make a person a billionaire, she can make someone disappear, she can send them halfway across the world. The severity of the requests Alluka makes depends on the difficulty of the previous request made to Nanika. _But_ ,” he continues, and the vehemence of his voice startles Kurapika from his uneasy thoughts, “she can heal anyone, anything, and she never, _ever,_ makes a cruel request after healing a person.”

Understanding hits Kurapika suddenly, and his lips twitch. So, Killua asked his sister to heal Gon.

“My family had her locked up,” Killua says bitterly. “Because they thought she was a monster. They couldn’t control her, they were scared of her, so they put her in a bunker that the best Hunters in the world couldn’t break into or out of. I had to make them let me in—I had to promise I’d come home if they let me ask her to heal Gon.”

“Obviously that hasn’t happened,” Kurapika notes wryly. Killua’s lips twitch.

“She made three requests, and I met them, but I didn’t make mine from in the bunker. She has to touch a person in order to heal them, and besides, I wanted her out of there. So I made them let us out. They were watching us on a video camera, and I told Nanika to kill my mom if we weren’t off the mountain in half an hour, but if we _were_ off the mountain by then, just to kiss my cheek. They let us go, but I was already in huge trouble.

“We got saddled with an escort, and I was put on level 4 alert—if I broke any of the guidelines I was given, I would be forced home immediately. I couldn’t contact anybody, I couldn’t tell anyone about Alluka or her powers or let them see, and I had to come straight home after she healed Gon. I also wasn’t supposed to hurt or kill any family members. It’s kind of the family rule, but it’s not one I give a shit about.

“They don’t consider Alluka a family member, though, so she was fair game. And Illumi was already following me with every intention of killing her. He almost caught us once, but he let us pass after I gave him one of the secrets about Alluka’s ability.”

“So you got her to the hospital,” Kurapika guesses. “And I’m assuming you had to completely clear out the portion of the building that Gon was in, since you couldn’t let anybody know about Alluka’s power on your mission.”

Killua nods, but Leorio grumbles at his side.

“Evacuate a hospital,” he growls. “Fucking impossible…Who thinks that’s reasonable? Sick people…hurt people…”

“Shut up, it worked out,” Killua snaps. Leorio glowers but falls silent.

“I had to unwrap Gon’s arm so Nanika could touch it, and it was—”

Killua swallows convulsively, his skin turning the color of old ash.

“It was disgusting,” he says quietly. “You could feel how fragile the bone was. The skin was shriveled and discolored. All the muscle and tissue had been eaten away. Breathing on it too hard could have made it crumble to dust. It felt…cold…brittle…”

Kurapika’s eyes flash as Killua’s voice fades, wide eyes on something in his lap that nobody else can see. His fingers tremble on his thighs, but before Kurapika can think of anything to say or do, Gon reaches over and lays his arm across the other boy’s hands, his lean, dark-skinned, perfectly healthy arm. Killua twitches, fingers curling around the new weight, his nails digging into soft skin and hard muscle, and Gon waits quietly, watching Killua struggle between the image in his mind and the conflicting one in front of him.

“…Sorry,” he mumbles eventually, releasing Gon’s forearm and running a hand over his face.

“’S okay,” the raven responds, sliding the same arm around his shoulders.

It’s easy to see now what Leorio told him before. That they’re the only ones that can help each other because they’re the only ones that understand what’s going on in the other’s head.

“Anyway,” Killua continues roughly. “Nanika healed him—good as new, almost. The only thing she couldn’t do was fix his Nen completely. She managed to reign it in so that he didn’t lose it, but he couldn’t use it properly either. He’s finally got it back, just like it was before, but it took forever.”

So that’s why Gon’s aura has changed so much. Between his mistake in NGL and the struggle of bringing it back almost from scratch, it’s no wonder that he’s keeping it so carefully controlled now.

“Illumi came to take Alluka and me home after,” Killua says. “But I had Nanika send him home. I also gave her a specific order. Only Alluka could bring her out, regardless of requests, and Alluka has to _call_ her out. Illumi wanted to use her like he used me—maybe even more—and it was the best way to keep him from ever being able to do that.”

“And now you two are on the run,” Kurapika concludes. “That’s why she’s with Bisky, I take it? Not just for training?”

Killua nods.

“And the two of you don’t spend much time here at Leorio’s, right?”

Both of them nod.

“That’s why you two split up for a while, as well. Because Killua had to protect Alluka.”

The boys both duck their heads.

“That’s…part of it,” Killua says uncomfortably. “But also…”

“I messed up,” Gon says harshly, causing everybody to flinch in surprise. “And he was tired of always dealing with my shit without ever saying a word. I hurt him one too many times without even understanding how or why or that I did it at all, and even after the NGL and Alluka, I didn’t get it. I apologized, but for the wrong things. So he left until I could figure out exactly how badly I fucked up.”

“That’s not—” Killua starts indignantly.

“Killua left for a lot of reasons,” Leorio interrupts. “He was mad at Gon, he had to protect his sister, and for some stupid reason, he had this idea that he couldn’t have Alluka _and_ Gon in his life at the same time. Like the universe couldn’t handle him actually being happy or something.”

Color floods Killua’s face before he lowers it so nobody can see his mortified expression, folding his arms tightly over his chest.

“He found Bisky, who agreed to train Alluka, and he promptly decided not to answer anybody’s calls or texts from that point on,” Leorio says pointedly.

Kurapika shifts uncomfortably, not only at the thinly veiled jab at his own actions but also at the fact that Killua seemed to have followed his poor example.

“And you, Gon?” Kurapika says, realizing that the other boy hasn’t spoken since the subject change.

The boy flinches, and his gaze flickers away.

“I…trained,” he says lamely. It’s a lie so obvious that Kurapika almost feels irritated with him.

“That’s one way to put it,” Killua scoffs, unfolding himself from his knot of limbs to clout Gon over the head. “The _wrong_ way to put it.”

“Shut up,” the boy snaps, but his heart clearly isn’t in it.

“Gon,” Kurapika says quietly. The boy looks up, and for a moment he really is a boy; Kurapika can’t see the difference between him now and the twelve-year-old he met so many years ago. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Gon denies immediately, wincing when Killua digs an elbow into his ribs.

“Nope,” the other agrees. “It was stupid.”

“Like you were any better,” Gon says in response.

“I wasn’t trying to—” Killua starts, but the end of the sentence seems to catch in his throat and he looks away, scowling furiously.

Gon sighs and scrubs a hand through his hair, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water, clearly at a loss for what to say. When he continues to be at a loss for words, Leorio sighs.

“You know how reckless he’s always been,” Leorio says. Kurapika nods. “Take that, multiply it by about a hundred, and you’ll get an idea of how he spent the next two years.”

Kurapika frowns, thinking idly that it doesn’t seem possible for Gon to have become _more_ reckless than before. Broken limbs and a generally battered body were Gon’s normal state, and there wasn’t a case where he didn’t run with stupid and reckless abandon headlong into danger. Leaping over the side of a ship and just hoping someone would catch him, confronting opponents he absolutely knows to be stronger than him because they’re giving his friends a hard time, walking into attack after attack without even lifting a finger in defense with absolutely no plan, all within the first year of knowing him. How does one top that?

Unless Leorio’s talking about the difference between a lack of self-preservation and a sudden presence of self-destructive tendencies. It is one thing not to have any regard for your wellbeing, and quite another to actively seek out situations to your detriment.

“I think this can wait for another day,” Kurapika says abruptly, eyes on his friends sitting on the floor.

They’ve already told him more than they had to, and while he can’t find the words to adequately explain how much he appreciates that, he doesn’t want them to do it any further. Not right now. They’re already at the end of their ropes as it is, shoulders curled inward and gazes for the most part fixed on their laps. He doesn’t want to put more pressure on them right now, especially since it seems their troubles were far from over even after Killua’s sister healed Gon.

The boys look up at him, startled, and Leorio moves at his side.

“Kurapika?” Gon says curiously. Kurapika gives him a small smile.

“You’ve told me more than enough for now,” he says. “I don’t want—I don’t want you to feel like you have to tell me everything right away.”

A hand finds his shoulder, warm and soft, and gives it a gentle squeeze. Kurapika doesn’t have to look at Leorio to know that he’s wearing a small smile of his own, and the relieved expression on Gon’s face makes his heart stop briefly. He was right to stop them when he did. It’s too much, far too much for any one person to have to bear, least of all a child, and he doesn’t want to be the one to make them relive it before they’re truly ready to share with him. Killua is the only one that doesn’t look entirely satisfied with the subject coming to this temporary close, and Kurapika wonders at that. At the piercing look the other boy gives Gon and the thin line his lips become.

“That means you might have to stick around for a while, Kurapika,” Leorio warns. The blonde finally turns his full attention to the friend at his side, dark eyes warm and soft.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere just yet.”


	4. Chapter 4

When Kurapika wakes in the morning, he feels curiously heavy and far too warm. He grumbles blearily and tries to push himself up, but a dead weight on his chest and another across his legs holds him down. He cracks his eyes open and looks down at himself, taking in the muscled arm sprawled over his torso and the single leg somehow tangled with both of his own, the dark hair covering it matching that on his arm. Kurapika turns his head slightly to find Leorio face-down on the bed, his head inches from Kurapika’s and his entire body spread-eagled across the entire mattress. Even as Kurapika frowns at him, Leorio gives a huge, grunting snore and shifts slightly, face turning unconsciously to the side so that he can breathe easier and giving an unobstructed view of the wrinkles in his skin from the pillowcase.

A chuckle escapes Kurapika even as his heart thuds painfully in his chest. It’s been a long time since he’s been able to see Leorio’s less than elegant sleeping expression, and he’s missed it more than he cares to admit out loud. However, as much as he might want to leave the man in peace, he is entirely too warm and heavy to be laying half on top of Kurapika the way he is. So, doing his best not to disturb his friend, Kurapika tries to slip out from under his limbs, but those limbs tighten in response, curling around him as if trying to hold him there. He pushes against Leorio’s side, but it only accomplishes putting a crease in Leorio’s brow. The much larger man grumbles in his sleep again and shifts closer until his nose is tucked in Kurapika’s hair, breath ghosting over his ear and making the Kurta shiver involuntarily.

“Leorio,” he murmurs, pushing again. If he really wants to, he can free himself, but he doesn’t think he can do that without hurting his friend. “Leorio, wake up. You’re heavy.”

With the way Leorio is now curled around him, Kurapika’s cheek is pressed against Leorio’s sternum and, if he turns his head, his nose will rest in the hollow of Leorio’s throat. As such, he can’t see his friend’s face, but he guesses from the flexing of Leorio’s limbs that he’s starting to come around.

“Mmph…” Leorio mumbles into his hair.

Kurapika rolls his eyes and digs his elbow into Leorio’s stomach. Not hard enough to hurt him, but more than enough to get his attention.

“Oof,” Leorio chuffs. “Wha…?”

When Leorio realizes exactly whom he’s using as a body pillow, it’s so obvious a blind young girl could have noticed. He yelps like he’s been shocked by Killua and disappears from his sprawl on top of Kurapika so instantly it’s almost disorienting, leaving Kurapika with a sudden chill and the strange notion that he’s about to float off of the mattress. Shaking his head in amusement, Kurapika finally pushes himself up into a sitting position and looks around, expecting to see Leorio red-faced and stammering not far from his side and instead meeting empty space on rumpled, tangled blankets. Unsure whether he should be amused or simply amazed, he scoots over and peers over the edge of the bed, finding Leorio in a spread-eagle flat on his back on the floor--still not an unfamiliar position for him at all.

“Are you alright?” Kurapika wonders, his lips curled into a grin that screams _schadenfreude_.

Leorio’s neck and ears, already a little on the pink side, darken even further, and he splutters incoherently for a good thirty seconds before Kurapika cuts him off. However, he doesn’t intentionally interrupt. He simply can’t hold down his humor any longer, and so he bursts out into a loud, long peal of laughter that strikes Leorio dumb.

Kurapika laughs until his sides hurt at the situation he’s woken up to and Leorio’s less than graceful response to it, and then he laughs even more simply for the pleasure of it, because he honestly can’t remember the last time he’s been able to do that. His eyes are stinging, and Leorio’s just watching him, a weird mixture of apprehension and wonder in his expression, and Kurapika pays him no mind until he’s quite finished making his stomach ache from mirth.

“If you actually care, yeah, I’m fine,” Leorio grumbles, rolling his eyes and clambering back up to his feet.

Still smiling, Kurapika leans back to sit on his heels and looks up at his friend, eyes gleaming, and after a moment of scowling, Leorio relents and allows his own lips to twitch.

“Do you have to work today?” Kurapika wonders. Leorio shakes his head.

“I’ve actually got the next few days off,” he says. “Never know when those two are gonna come around again, so I gotta take advantage of what time I get, right?”

“Mm…” Kurapika agrees softly. “Any plans for the da--”

“YOU SHOWERED FIRST YESTERDAY!”

Kurapika jumps, and so does Leorio, and then Kurapika is laughing again at the one-sided argument flying down the hall to them.

“KILLUA, COME ON! YOU TAKE FOREVER IN THERE!”

A series of loud bangs leads Kurapika to guess that Gon is pounding on the bathroom door, which Killua has doubtlessly already barricaded himself behind.

“OI!” Leorio bellows. “JUST SHOWER TOGETHER SO WE DON’T HAVE TO HEAR ABOUT IT!”

Silence falls for a moment, Kurapika blushing, Leorio waiting, and Gon probably trying to work out the innuendo. If Killua heard, his entire face is probably brilliant pink right now. When nothing happens, followed by more nothing, and then proceeded by yet more nothing, Kurapika begins to get curious, and he jumps over the edge of the bed and pads cautiously down the hall, still not sure which room is the bathroom. However, when he rounds the corner, he is all but certain he’s figured it out, because a door is just swinging closed on a broad silhouette.

“I don’t know why they ever have that argument,” Leorio groans, appearing at Kurapika’s shoulder. “It’s not like they never bathed together before.”

“It’s a little different when you’re a twelve, though, Leorio,” Kurapika reasons.

Leorio snorts.

“Yeah, well, I’m gonna go lament the lack of hot water that always comes from their showers. Help yourself to whatever’s here.”

With that, Leorio stalks back to his room, and Kurapika is left standing in the hallway, shocked by his lack of surprise at the chaos that is all four of them together again. In a brief moment, he thinks again that it’s like nothing at all has changed, but the thought makes him sad now, and he bows his head and retreats back to Leorio’s room.

Leorio has wasted no time in flinging himself back upon the bed, and he looks away from the ceiling to meet Kurapika’s gaze.

“I know I told you to help yourself,” the man says, a leer curling his lips. “But it’s a bit early for _this_ , isn’t it?”

An arched eyebrow has never been enough to do more than make Leorio smirk, but it’s all Kurapika feels like offering at the moment.

“As charming as you are,” Kurapika says dryly. “There are important things, less important things, and things that have no place being thought of, and your attempts at flirting aren’t even _that_ high on my list of priorities.”

“Please, if I was flirting, your clothes would already be on the floor,” Leorio snorts.

“Doubtful,” he replies.

After a moment of silence, Kurapika moves to sit on the edge of the bed, and Leorio sits up and scoots over to his side.

“You wanna know more,” he guesses when Kurapika remains quiet.

He nods mutely, eyes on the hands lying limply in his lap.

“I can’t tell you what was going on in their heads,” Leorio says. “All I can give you is what I saw. What I’ve guessed.”

“For all your blustering, your intuition is often rather remarkable,” Kurapika says softly. “If you’re confident in your assumption, it’s very likely that it’s correct.”

“That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Kurapika rolls his eyes and looks up to prompt Leorio. The other man blows a long, slow breath out through his nose.

“I’m a hundred percent sure that Gon was--maybe still is--depressed. He’s always been reckless, y’know? He’s always tended to treat his own well being as expendable. That sort of thing happens a lot in kids whose parents deserted them. They show signs that they don’t regard themselves highly. They start thinking they’re not worth much, if anything, because their own parents chose to abandon them. And people like Gon feel the need to _prove_ , to themselves and everyone around them, that they’re not useless, and it’s almost impossible to ever convince yourself of something like that.”

It makes sense, and Kurapika wonders if Leorio has shifted the focus of his studies somewhat based on his friends’ troubles.

“Gon takes every mistake he makes to heart. Every time he fails isn’t just disheartening for him: it’s like an affirmation that he’s useless. Feeling powerless is the worst thing for him, so he always goes on and on about becoming stronger, becoming better, and because of that, when there’s a situation he can’t fix, he considers it entirely his fault. If he can’t protect someone, it’s because he’s too weak. If he can’t make someone smile, it’s because he’s a failure as a friend--even as a person.

“So, faced with very little besides failure in the NGL, he snapped. He burnt out all of his aura to defeat Pitou, and he was perfectly ready to accept the consequences of that choice; he bartered his own life for the power to finally beat the thing that killed his friend. It felt like it meant something that way, to him. But when Killua’s sister healed him, and he realized that all he’d managed to do was hurt even more people…”

“He broke.”

Leorio swallows shakily and nods.

“His dad’s best friend, and a good friend to him as well, died because he couldn’t help. His own best friend was in shambles because he’d been stupid. Netero died because Gon failed his initial mission. I was a living zombie because I was so worried about him. There’s probably a hundred problems he’s found to make his own fault, and once Killua left, he couldn’t hold back anymore. Some part of him hated simply...existing. So he tried not to.”

Kurapika clenches his jaw and curls his fingers into fists, nails digging painfully into his palms and knuckles threatening to break through the skin. It’s too much. Gon should never have had to go through those things, and he should never have felt responsible for them. He’d still been a _child_ going up against demons and hunter leagues above him. Weakness was not a crime, and his existence was never a mistake and never will be. He doesn’t deserve to feel anything less than extraordinary. He doesn’t deserve to feel worthless.

“He’s…gotten better,” Leorio continues, leaning his temple on the crown of Kurapika’s head. “At least, I think he has. They’ve only been over for a couple days, and the last time they visited was months ago, but he _seems_ better. Killua seems to think so.”

“When those two were separated…” Kurapika trails off, trying to paint the picture in his mind and at the same time wishing he had no imagination for such things.

“Gon was hurt more often than not,” Leorio says. “God, it was so much worse than how he used to be. It was more than him just being stupid or not thinking; he was actively putting himself in situations with every intention of getting hurt. It was like he wanted to die, but he couldn’t do it himself, so he tried to find any way to make it happen without it being directly his fault.”

Kurapika swallows thickly.

“Maybe that’s extreme,” Leorio allows. “Maybe he was just trying to get hurt, to punish himself without legitimately dying, but I don’t buy that. It was too much. When I found out he’d started doing it to himself, not even going out and looking for fights, I…I had no idea what to do. Med school doesn’t prepare you for something like that. I called everyone I could think of, but no one could help. He didn’t listen to me, so all I could do was watch. Every time he ended up in the hospital, I kept him there as long as I could, but that never accomplished much accept prolonging the inevitable.”

“What…” Kurapika rasps, realizing belatedly that his mouth and throat are drier than the desert. He clears his throat and tries again. “What changed?”

Leorio’s lips twitch weakly, and he reaches out to catch Kurapika’s hand, tugging him over until he sits down beside him.

“I went to see him at Heavens Arena and found him passed out in his room with both of his arms totally shattered.”

Shock stiffens Kurapika’s spine and numbs his fingers and toes.

“ _What?_ ” he chokes. Leorio nods, swallowing convulsively.

“It was…it was horrible. There wasn’t a bone in his arms or hands that wasn’t broken. And, god, he did it to himself. I don’t know how—they never told me—but I’d never seen something like that before. I got him back to the hospital, got him fixed up, but we had to drug the hell out of him to keep him from running off. By then I was—God, I was terrified, and I—”

“Gon! Where are you going?”

Kurapika and Leorio stiffen and look at the door, which he left ajar when he entered. They see only a sliver of empty hallway, but a second later the door is flung wide and Killua is standing in the space left, hands on his hips and looking livid.

“Why would you talk about that with him here?” he snaps, his voice a venomous hiss that’s barely audible.

The color drains from Leorio’s face blotchily, and Kurapika is staring with eyes wide at his friend.

“I—I thought you two were—”

“We can hear an infant sneeze next door during a maelstrom, and you think he didn’t hear you two down the hall while he was in the shower?” Killua demands.

Neither man on the bed responds, and Killua scowls.

“You’d better never talk about that with him around again,” he says darkly as he turns away. “You know what it does to him.”

“I—Killua, I’m—”

“Sorry,” the young man finishes. “Yeah, I know.”


	5. Chapter 5

Kurapika wakes to the sound of a door opening down the hall. The clock on the bedside table reads 1:29 in the morning. Frowning, he sits up and looks through the open doorway, sees no one approaching, and slides his feet over the side of the bed. He spares a glance behind him at Leorio, who, while gracious enough to offer Kurapika his bedroom, was not about to take the couch in the living room either, leading to the two of them sharing the admittedly large mattress. The man is well and truly out, his mouth hanging open and a puddle of drool collecting on his pillow as loud, stuttering snores trumpet from him.

Smiling at the familiar and amusing sight, Kurapika opts not to wake him and quietly rises, padding as quietly as a cat down the deserted, dark hall. The doorway to the boys’ room stands ajar, and when he peeks inside, he sees one lump on the bed rather than two. He can’t tell who it is, and doesn’t go in farther to check. Kurapika moves out of the doorway and continues down the hall to the living room, which is dimly illuminated by weak silver starlight filtering in through the uncovered windows. By that light, Kurapika can make out the broad silhouette of Gon as he lets himself silently out the back door, leaving it open ever so slightly, just like the bedroom.

With a frown Kurapika follows, slipping out into the crisp night air and flinching slightly at the cold pavement beneath his bare feet. Gon doesn’t walk more than a few paces from the door, and Kurapika hesitates before he approaches him, unsure if he should wait to see what Gon does or if he should make his presence known. But then, Gon probably already knows he’s there. Even if he couldn’t sense Kurapika’s aura, his acute sense of smell would pick out his presence.

It’s in silence that he watches Gon all but fall to his knees on the ground, and it’s in silence that he watches Gon lean his elbows on his thighs and lean forward. It’s in confused silence that he looks at Gon as the boy curls in on himself, hanging his head in his hands and knotting his fingers in his hair. It’s in pained silence that he watches as Gon’s shoulders start to shake. It’s in suddenly fearful silence as he realizes that the trembling of Gon’s shoulders isn’t from tears, or even laughter. He’s simply…shaking.

“Gon…?” he says cautiously, taking a step forward.

The boy gives no sign that he hears Kurapika, but his Nen flares and pushes him back when he tries to move closer, hitting him hard in the stomach. A sick feeling takes a hold of Kurapika, because he recognizes this. Gon isn’t really here, not really pushing Kurapika away. Not intentionally. He’s only semi aware of his surroundings, and whether because he’s trapped in his own head or because he’s caught up somewhere else entirely is impossible to say, but it’s clear that his mind and aura are confused and trying to protect him, though they don’t know why or from what.

“Gon!” Kurapika says, much louder as he tries to approach again. A wave a pure malice forces him back, and it’s not directed at him, but it still hits hard. “Gon, it’s me, it’s Kurapika. Snap out of it!”

There is no sign that Gon hears him. The boy continues to sit there, shuddering violently, his hands moving wildly between wringing each other and gripping his thighs with the kind of strength that makes Kurapika worry he’ll bruise, maybe even break them.

He recognizes this. It’s a pattern he’s quite familiar with, a disconnection with one’s surroundings and a paralyzing, overwhelming feeling of drowning in one’s own thoughts. He’s been there himself, wrapped in darkness, his own perverse thoughts putting his body and mind under incredible duress even though logically he knows it’s all in his head. Logically he knows the things he’s picturing are not happening, not now, not to him, but it doesn’t stop the panic or the fear, the anger or the pain, and the body and the aura react to the danger his mind is fabricating.

Dimly Kurapika hears muffled noises from inside, but he’s focused on Gon. He has to get to Gon, has to help him somehow. But he doesn't know what to say, he has no idea what he can say or do that might affect whatever he's drowning in.

“Gon, you’re okay,” he says hoarsely, standing his ground against another wave from Gon’s Nen before moving closer, bearing the next pulse of bloodlust. “You’re safe. Come on, snap out of it.”

His heart leaps into his throat when Gon lifts a hand, fingers curled so tightly into a fist that his knuckles seem like they’re going to puncture the skin, and brings it crashing down over his own thigh. As Kurapika forces himself to take another step, Gon slams his fist into his leg again, and Kurapika feels his heart break a little. Without thinking, he conjures his chains and casts one out so that it lashes around Gon’s wrist, yanking his fist back and preventing the next blow. The noise that leaves Gon at that is animalistic, and he jerks his arm in an attempt to break the chain, succeeding only in reeling Kurapika in about a foot.

“Gon!”

The cry isn’t from Kurapika, but the boy that nearly runs right into his back. Kurapika looks around, expression frantic, and Killua looks back at him, blue eyes blazing.

“Killua, I—I don’t know what—” Kurapika begins, but Killua cuts across him.

“Let him go, Kurapika,” he says firmly.

“I can’t,” Kurapika says, distressed. “If I let him go, he’ll—he’s trying to—”

“I _know_ ,” Killua snaps, his pupils blown so wide that they almost erase the blue of his irises, and Kurapika understands belatedly that Killua is just as frantic as him. “That’s why you have to let him go!”

“I’m not going to just let him break his own leg!” Kurapika says, thoroughly confused.

“Neither am I, but holding him back just makes it worse!”

The intensity of Killua’s stare settles it, and Kurapika very reluctantly retracts his chain. The boy at his side wastes no time, and before Gon can even register that his arm has been freed, Killua is in front of him. Kurapika expects him to slap Gon, or force him to his feet, or maybe knock him back flat, but Killua does none of those things. Once in front of Gon, completely heedless of the aura trying to force anything and everything that might be a threat away, Killua lowers himself to Gon’s level and crawls onto his lap, knees straddling his thighs, and wraps his arms around the other boy’s neck.

Kurapika’s immediate shock and confusion is wiped away almost immediately, because Gon’s fist, already crashing down over his own thigh, comes to an abrupt halt an inch from impact. Because it’s not his leg he would have hit. The way Killua’s draped himself across Gon, there isn’t an inch of himself that he can reach, and even in his current state Gon is clearly aware enough to recognize that he would have hurt someone aside from himself if he didn’t stop.

“Gon,” Killua says quietly, voice remarkably calm. “Gon, I’m not mad. It’s okay.”

Gon is still trembling, and Kurapika watches with an aching heart as Killua tightens his arms around his friend’s shoulders. Slowly, his hand falls limply to his side, and his forehead falls heavily onto Killua’s shoulder. The white-haired boy closes his eyes briefly, visibly sagging in relief, and one hand slides up to card through Gon’s hair, the other remaining on his back between his shoulders.

“Hey,” Killua murmurs, turning to kiss the crown of Gon’s head. Kurapika looks away. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Gon mumbles something Kurapika doesn’t catch against Killua’s neck, but his arms lift to wrap around Killua’s middle and hug him tightly.

“I know,” Killua responds gently. “I know. It’s alright. I love you. It’s alright.”

Fingers trembling, Kurapika quietly backs away, slipping inside and closing the door to leave the two of them alone. When he turns around, he finds that he isn’t alone in the living room, and he doesn’t question the arms that wrap around his shoulders because he knows better. The embrace is meant to comfort Leorio every bit as much as it is to comfort him, maybe even more so. He’s been utterly alone this entire time, trying to help his friends to the best of his ability but often being forced to simply watch them fall apart, again and again, and wait for them to piece each other back together. Being all but a bystander to pain is agony to Leorio, who for all his big talk is compassionate to a fault, and to be helpless while someone is hurting doesn’t just hurt him. Kurapika has a strong suspicion that in times like these, all Leorio can think about is Pietro, his old friend who’d fallen ill and left him behind, while all he could do was watch. He thinks he’s failing all over again.

And he’s been dealing with it alone. He can’t tell the boys this. He can’t pull them into a bone-crushing embrace to comfort himself when they’re the very reason he’s barely keeping it together; it would hurt them even more. So Kurapika gladly offers whatever comfort he can, and takes in return his own sense of stability in the arms around him, keeping him grounded and out of his own head.

They don’t say anything, not there, and after a long moment Leorio steps back and leads Kurapika back to his room, closing the door firmly behind them.

“If it wasn’t obvious before,” Leorio says, making a brave attempt at a steady tone, “you probably get now that Gon hasn’t really forgiven himself for any of the things that happened.”

Kurapika nods mutely, folding his arms over his chest subconsciously, fingers curling around his biceps defensively.

“By...by the time he broke his arms,” he continues, voice scarcely above a whisper. “I was desperate. Started making all sorts of calls, to anyone and everyone I could think of. I even managed to get a hold of Tonpa, though obviously he was about as useless as they come.”

Kurapika thinks of the short, squat man who gets his kicks by crushing rookies in the Hunter Exam, and resists the urge to roll his eyes. Of course he’d been of no help.

“But I finally, _finally_ got some fruit for my labor after that, and I didn’t even know about it til it turned up on the hospital’s doorstep.”

“Oh?”

Leorio leans into him, resting his cheek on the top of his head.

“Word finally got around to someone that could actually help,” he says simply. “It was a freakin’ miracle, but there you go.”

“What happened?” Kurapika prompts, though he’s very sure he already knows. Leorio’s tone implies that ‘word’ didn’t really get around to ‘someone’ that could help, but rather the _only_ one. There’s exactly one person that fits that context.

“What do you think?” the man asks, lacing his fingers casually through Kurapika’s.

There’s no hesitance in his answer.

“Killua.”

“Bingo. Killua found out what was going on, and he turned up at the hospital just as I was leaving for the night. Thought I was seein’ a ghost for a second. Took him up to see Gon—kid looked like he was gonna be sick when he saw his arms. I let him spend the night with me so that he could come with me in the morning to see Gon when he woke up.”

“It did _not_ go that smoothly,” Kurapika says shrewdly. Nothing with Gon and Killua is ever that easy. Leorio almost chuckles.

“Of course not,” he sighs. “Gon managed to sneak out in the middle of the night. By the time anyone found out and called me he was long gone. Killua took off after him without so much as a goodbye. As long as it took him to call me back, I’m assuming he had to fight up Heavens Arena to Gon’s floor before they could have their heart-to-heart or whatever. He managed to bring Gon back without even having to hogtie him, which impressed me.”

Kurapika’s smile is weak and short-lived on account of the knots in his stomach. The only reason he doesn’t immediately go after those two for a lecture, a punch, and a very strong hug is the hand that tightens around his.

“They stayed here for a little while, and we all kind of had to get used to each other again, but it wasn’t too bad. I don’t know exactly when their relationship changed, but it didn’t really matter. Once Gon started getting better, the two of them left together to go visit Killua’s sister, and from there, they fell back into their old patterns. Going wherever the wind took them, taking stupidly dangerous missions and exploring new countries.”

With a sigh, Kurapika closes his stinging eyes and leans back into Leorio, wishing and wishing that his friends could have met a kinder world than the one they have. These are troubles that grown adults shouldn’t have to bear and in many cases can’t, and yet they gained them at such a young age. They were children when this all started, children given too much weight to bear on young shoulders, and they’ve been forced to grow up much too fast. They don’t deserve it. They don’t deserve any of it.

It’s even worse than what Kurapika’s had to struggle through, he thinks. He’s never harbored illusions of the massacre of the Kurta being his fault, or that had he been there he might somehow have been able to stop it from happening. As the sole survivor, he was consumed with grief and with rage, and if he felt guilt it was only because he had not died with his brethren. As the sole survivor, he took it upon himself to avenge his people, to retrieve their eyes and, if he could, punish every Spider that had a hand in the murder of his family.

But he didn’t watch them killed. He didn’t hurt or feel hurt by his people at any time. His experiences, while highly unpleasant, were not of war against a species that he understood had not inherently done anything wrong. He hasn’t watched his best friend lose himself to grief so completely that he destroyed himself, and he hasn’t slowly self-destructed because of a thousand different things he hadn’t done or shouldn’t have done.

They both look up when they hear hushed voices in the living room, and Kurapika almost wants to go out and see them, but he knows now isn’t the time. They’ll both be exhausted, Gon especially, and the last thing they need is Kurapika making them more self-conscious about what happened.

“Kurapika?”

“Mm?”

“We should sleep.”

“Probably.”

Leorio’s snort of amusement tickles his face, and then they pull apart, shifting on the bed so that they’re lying on their sides, very close to each other with their heads on the same pillow. Briefly Leorio leans down, grabbing the covers that were thrown back earlier and pulling them up to cover the both of them. Under the blanket, Kurapika’s fingers find Leorio’s and interlace with them. In response, Leorio hooks his ankles around his and tangle their legs together, pulling him closer until Kurapika’s forehead rests against his chest. Leorio is warm, and Kurapika presses closer unabashedly, delighting in the comfort it brings him.

“Hey, Kurapika?”

“Yes?”

“I like the braid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. Well, that was a rollercoaster. Don't forget to tell me what all of you thought! I love hearing your opinions. Also I'm considering adding to the collection, but I don't have any hard ideas yet, so I'll happily consider any suggestions you have!   
> Happy Holidays!


	6. Chapter 6

Kurapika is procrastinating in the shower. Leorio has already gone to the front, to scrounge around for something resembling breakfast, and a fair amount of excess noise has already declared the start of Gon’s predictably early morning routine. It’s not clear whether or not Killua is awake yet, but Kurapika suspects he’s trying--and probably failing--to sleep in.

With a sigh he hangs his head, some of his wet hair flopping over his shoulders to curtain is face. He needs to talk to Gon about last night, he knows that, but he has no idea where to even start. Telling Gon it’s not his fault seems too shallow, but apologizing just makes it seem like Gon was doing something shameful that Kurapika wishes he hadn’t walked in on. All in all, he’s entirely unprepared to face Gon, so he’s been whiling his time away in the shower for almost an hour, but he doesn’t think he can get away with it for much longer. However long his hair has become, the others in the house aren’t going to buy that he’s simply been doing the classic wash-rinse-repeat. Or rather, they’re going to suspect he’s been doing it several times over.

Just as he reaches for the dial to turn the water off, a knock sounds on the bathroom door, and though it’s quiet enough that it could almost have been missed, it startles Kurapika enough to make him jump and almost slip and fall in surprise.

“Kurapika?” a voice says hesitantly.

His shoulders fall slack.

“Just a moment, Gon, I was just getting out,” he calls.

“Uh--no, it’s alright. I can talk from here.”

He casts a frown in the direction of the door, though the shower curtain is blocking his view, but he doesn’t speak. It’s best to let Gon do this on his own terms, since it’s going to be difficult enough as it is. If he wants to talk from there, Kurapika won’t object.

“I’m...ah, I’m sorry about last night,” the boy says after a moment. “That’s not something I wanted you to see.”

“Gon…” Kurapika sighs, closing his eyes wearily. “You have nothing to apologize to me for.”

“I guess…” Gon says, sounding thoroughly unconvinced. “But I…I thought I was fine. I’ve been getting better, I swear, I just...I…”

“It’s alright, Gon,” Kurapika says softly, shutting off the water so that he can hear his friend more clearly. “Something like that isn’t really something you can control.”

“But I have been,” Gon refutes, distressed.

Kurapika tugs the curtain aside and steps onto the mat beside the shower, snatching the spare towel hanging beside Leorio’s and patting himself down. He might as well, since he’s soaking wet and has nothing else to do with himself.

“I’ve been keeping it in check. I’ve been getting better. Or, I thought so, at least.”

Kurapika hesitates in the act of braiding his wet hair back--a towel is never going to actually dry all of it by itself--and bites his lip.

“Gon, depression isn’t...it isn’t that simple,” Kurapika says carefully as his hands fall back to his sides. “Getting better doesn’t mean these things stop happening. It can mean they happen less often, it can mean that they’re less severe, or it can mean that you snap out of it easier. But making progress with something like this isn’t a straight line of improvement. There is no “safe point” after which you won’t have episodes anymore. You’re going to have highs and lows, and the odds are high that they are going to be impossible to feel coming.”

“But…what am I supposed to do then?” Gon asks in a small voice.

Kurapika doesn’t answer right away. He takes his time to think through his words, knowing what he says next is very likely something Gon is going to cling to, and fills the silence by pulling on a pair of clean pants and a shirt that Leorio lent him. It’s too big, but after he tucks it into the waistband of his pants and rolls the sleeves a couple of times, it fits well enough.

Gon waits patiently on the other side of the door, but Kurapika can sense the agitation in his aura, the desire for an answer that can help him. The problem is that, as Leorio said before, there isn’t much of a formula for depression. While some people experience it similarly, it’s at the same time unique for each person inflicted with it, based on their own lives and their own minds. And if the causes and ways that it manifests differ, then the ways to treat it are even more numerous and delicate. There is no guaranteed method that Kurapika can offer his friend, no surefire way to overcome it, and certainly there is no easy way to cope in the meantime.

“I can’t...tell you what you need to do,” Kurapika finally says. “It’s different for every person, and only you can really know what you need.”

“But I don’t,” Gon says, voice breaking under the stress. “I don’t understand any of it. I don’t know how to be better.”

“Gon,” Kurapika says, his voice gentle. “Can I open the door?”

There’s a moment of silence as Gon hesitates. He may not want to see Kurapika, or for Kurapika to see him, and if that’s the case, he probably won’t say anything at all. Kurapika will respect that. But it’s Gon, and Gon as Kurapika knows him is not one to pass on companionship when it’s offered. He isn’t made to be alone, and even though he knows there’s a person on the other side of the door, he himself is standing in an empty room.

“...Yeah,” he says at last. “If...if you want.”

Kurapika takes the doorknob and slowly pulls the door open, looking at the young man filling the empty frame. Gon’s hair is still damp from his own shower, and his hands are shoved awkwardly into the pockets of his jeans, probably to keep them from fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.

He reaches out with both hands and curls his fingers around Gon’s wrists, tugging firmly until his friend slides his hands out of his pockets. Gon’s hands are much larger than his, the backs heavily scarred and palms rough and hard with callouses, but somehow they still feel delicate as Kurapika wraps his own around them.

“Believe it or not, it is okay not to have all the answers,” Kurapika tells him, meeting his tawny gaze firmly. “It isn’t possible for one person to be able to do or know everything.”

“But I--”

“Gon, you are important to so many people,” he interrupts, fingers tightening. “So many. You are more loved than you know, and every person whose heart you’ve touched is more than ready to help you if you ask. Sometimes all it takes is people you care about, people that care about you, to help you through the bad times.”

Gon looks away, but his hands in Kurapika’s flex and squeeze..

“Enjoy the good days to the fullest, and when the bad days come, take comfort from the people around you, and try to remember that it won’t be forever. I know, god I know it feels impossible and cliche to think about a better tomorrow when you feel like you’re suffocating today, but you have to try. Killua is always going to be there to help you, and so will Leorio and I.”

Gon doesn’t say anything for a moment, but he offers Kurapika a weak smile.

“We missed you,” he says quietly. Kurapika blinks.

“I…” he chokes. He clears his throat, but doesn’t manage to dislodge the lump that’s made it’s home there. “I missed you...too…”

“You’re not gonna disappear again, right?”

Eyes stinging, Kurapika shakes his head.

“No, Gon,” he promises. “I’m not leaving any of you anymore.”

“I’m glad.”

“Me too, Gon.”

They stand there in silence for a long while, both of them looking down at their clasped hands.

“Breakfast is ready!” comes a shout from the front of the house.

Kurapika chuckles at the way Gon immediately perks up, eyes flicking to the doorway.

“Well, hurry up,” he urges, withdrawing his hands and shooing Gon toward the door. “Before Killua eats it all.”

Gon doesn’t need any more encouragement, but he hesitates at the doorway and glances back at Kurapika, his lips still curled hesitantly.

“Thanks, Kurapika.”

“You’re welcome.”


End file.
